@Ghost
You are making a mistake the US made at the time. You are confusing a civil war with an ideology war. The North Vietnamese were never idealists when it came to Communism , they simply wanted freedom from a corrupt government and being oppressed by foreign powers. Since those that occupied them in the past , like the French , were "democrats" while infringing the democracy of others , they turned to the only other major world ideology out there at the time - Communism - and I'm sure that Russia was more than willing to fund the flames of revolution.
I think to them Communism was a means to an end rather than the core ideology that drove them on their warpath. I think it was patriotism rather than politics that drove them to suicide bombing.

That's a reasonable enough interpretation of events. I'm not married to the idea of North Vietnamese communist zealots, although I'm sure there were at least a few (I couldn't tell you how influential Hồ Chí Minh was), but isms drive no one to suicide bombing, strategic necessity does. Regardless, what is clear is that they were Atheists; which invalidates the speaker's claim.

Old thread. But to settle this debate once and for all I will suicide bomb something, I know a church. Because I don't believe in gods. That must do it. I mean it can't be that hard. To say that you will never see something sounds fundy.

"I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments." -Jim Morrison

Well sure you will likely see suicide bombers that happen to be atheists but I am not sure you will find suicide bombings for the atheist cause.

Its a war of words really. Atheist suicide bomber is easy to argue against. Any suicide bomber without a belief in god wins that argument. But when you start looking at the reason for the suicide bombing it opens an entirely different argument.

As I said earlier, the numbers of atheist suicide bombers is pitifully small, even when used in guerilla warfare by the likes of the viet cong. People are far more willing to kill themselves in the name of religion - for religious reasons - when they believe that there is a heaven, or the ultimate creator everything wishes them to do so. That's what makes religion dangerous. Religion can and does motivate people to do stupid things like kill themselves with a suicide bomb.

I didn't say that there would be no suicide bombers if there was no religion, but I'm convinced there would so a heck of a lot less, and society would function better (as demonstrated by strong correlation of religious vs. non-religious societies) which may also decrease the numbers of suicide bombers further.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use." - Galileo

If an Atheist kills a Theist because they don't like or don't want Theism, then they are killing in the name of Atheism. If they are Atheists who suicide bomb, they are not, but they are still Atheist suicide bombers.

Take the Palestinians. They are Muslim suicide bombers but they are not doing it in the name of Islam. They are trying to end an occupation. They aren't trying to make the Israeli's Muslim.

If an Atheist kills a Theist because they don't like or don't want Theism, then they are killing in the name of Atheism. If they are Atheists who suicide bomb, they are not, but they are still Atheist suicide bombers.

Take the Palestinians. They are Muslim suicide bombers but they are not doing it in the name of Islam. They are trying to end an occupation. They aren't trying to make the Israeli's Muslim.

Peace and Love and Empathy,

Matt

lol no they are trying to drive Israel into the sea.
and the only situations where I can see an atheist killing a theist because they "don't like or don't want" their religion is if the theist is forcing it on them to an extent where the only appropriate action from the atheist is force. Or if its someone with severe mental problems.
The former is self-defense.
The latter should be in an asylum.

You can't kill something in the name of atheism, as it is "the lack of something", killing in the name of the lack of something would not benefit the cause of not believing in something.
There is no ultimate reward for an atheist killing a theist. It would be simple murder of intolerance but not in "the name of atheism".
It is like saying you are killing in the name of "nothing". Atheism is not a belief system as it is not based upon "beliefs" but rather the knowledge of facts.
This is my point of view anyway.

How you say 'Atheist suicide bomber' implies that the the suicide bomber was killing in the name of atheism, semantics aside, you know that.

How you are defending your position of calling them atheist bombers is like me calling America's westward expansion and the violence that it indued a 'Christian war'. After all, many of the pioneers were Christian, and they did indeed kill the natives, hell some of them even used god to justify their means.

Communism was not a war for 'atheism' more than manifest destiny was a war for Christianity.

If a man from Sarnia, Ontario blows up a building in Detroit with a bomb strapped to his back, he's a Canadian suicide bomber, or, put another way, he is a suicide bomber who is Canadian. If someone says, "there's no such thing as Canadian suicide bombers," they'd be incorrect. In fact, you'd be incorrect to say that there can never be an X from cultural group Z, because anyone can be or do anything.

If a man from Sarnia blows up this building because he believes Michigan was stolen from us in the War of 1812, he'd be doing it, say, in the name of Canada. If he did it because he didn't like cities that begun with D and would just as soon have bombed Dallas, Dubai and Dauphin Manitoba, he'd be doing it in the name of, say, a world without D cities.

To do something in the name of something is to do something to advance something. Stalin attacked religion in order to eliminate it. He did it in the name of Atheism. The Viet Cong may have done things in the name of Atheism, I'd need an expert to tell me that, but they for sure were doing it in the name of North Vietnam, or something to that effect. Were they Atheists? Yes. So they were Atheist suicide bombers.

The bottom line is, the statement, there's no such thing as and/or there can never be Atheist suicide bombers is demonstrably false. That's one thing. Can people do things in the name of Atheism? Of course they can.

Either way, the reason I have any issue with this at all is because what is implied by the statement "there are no Atheist suicide bombers" is that suicide bombing is a unique property of religion. The REASON there can never be Atheist suicide bombers is because only the religious can be suicide bombers. That statement is entirely incorrect. Not only is it incorrect, it is nothing more than rank propaganda. Suicide bombing is a legitimate tactic in asymmetrical warfare. ANYONE using asymmetrical warfare can use suicide bombing because it is an effective way to achieve certain objectives, certainly not all, but some, against militarily superior forces.

Even if we went through the historical record with a fine tooth comb and determined that there have never been any instances of suicide bombers who were not just Atheists, which there are, but who were killing in the name of Atheism, the truth is that if, say, the Evangelical right took over the United States and it's army and police forces and judicial system and all her assets and created a totalitarian Evangelical theocracy, you could very easily imagine Atheist suicide bombers blowing up marketplaces in the name of Atheism. The fact that Atheists aren't in a position today where they need to employ suicide bombing, let alone asymmetrical warfare on any level, does not mean that it's an impossible occurrence.

I have huge issue with saying that universal qualities are unique to a specific group. People look at black populations and say that poverty, or low test scores, are a property of being black. Which is horse shit. But people use truly feeble post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning to support it. Same with suicide bombing. The religious used it, therefore religion caused it. It’s horse shit.

Religion has many reasons to be demonised, but suicide bombing is not one of them. And killing civilians sure as hell aint one of them either. And neither is ordering your soldiers to their death.